In 2017, Muhammad Hisham Abdul Karim zeroed in on an 11-year-old girl on the Internet and befriended her on Instagram.
He then sexually assaulted her and gave her methamphetamine, also known as Ice.
On Monday (5 Sep), 34-year-old Hisham was sentenced to 20 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane.
In court, he pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual assault by penetration of a minor. 11 other charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), Hisham came across the then-11-year-old victim’s Instagram profile in May 2017.
The student had referenced her primary school in her Instagram biography and posted pictures of herself in her school jersey.
Hisham proceeded to send her a friend request. The girl saw that they had several mutual friends from her school and they began chatting.
Sometime before mid-Nov 2017, she agreed to meet him at an HDB staircase landing.
TODAY reports that the girl was curious about sex and asked to have intercourse with him.
Afraid to get her pregnant, he sodomised her instead after she performed a sex act on him.
On another occasion, Hisham picked the girl up on his motorcycle and they went to an open-air car park near Woodlands.
He then got the girl to board the back of a covered lorry belonging to the company he worked for.
The pair chatted there and Hisham offered her Ice. He passed her a glass ball with a rubber tube and she smoked the drug.
Hisham also smoked the drug before undressing himself and the victim.
They then engaged in sex acts and Hisham sodomised the girl for a few minutes before sending her home.
Their relationship soured sometime in Nov 2017 and they stopped keeping in touch.
In Feb 2020, the victim confided in a case worker, revealing that she had sex with Hisham in 2017.
An employee from the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) then lodged a police report and Hisham was arrested.
TODAY reports that this was not Hisham’s first offence.
In 2016, he was convicted of one count of sexual penetration of a minor, a 15-year-old girl, and was sentenced to ten months in jail.
Hisham was later examined by an Institute of Mental Health (IMH) psychiatrist, who found that he met the criteria for paedophilic disorder.
He has a moderate risk of sexual reoffending. The psychiatrist also noted “alarming clear escalation” of his sexual offences.
In court, the judge said the victim was vulnerable and Hisham’s actions were premeditated and “deviously planned”.
She pointed out that Hisham knew full well that the victim was a primary school student before taking planned steps to initiate contact.
In addition, he had given her drugs to consume, an aggravating factor as it made her more vulnerable.
He had also exposed her to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases as he frequented sex workers during the period of 2013 to 2018.
According to CNA, the judge added that his previous 2016 punishment “did not teach him anything”.
The jail time for sexual assault by penetration of a minor under 16 is between eight and 20 years. It also comes with a minimum of 12 strokes of the cane.
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Featured image by MS News.
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